Bitten
by Ranger Hitomi
Summary: Yuma has an obligation to put down a monster killing people. Unfortunately for him, the monster wears his best friend's face. vampire AU


Moonlight from the three-quarter moon high above the harbor glistened on the water as it rippled gently, back and forth, against the boats moored against the dock. It was a quiet night, the docks empty, except for the quiet creaks of a lone figure making his way purposefully but cautiously toward a warehouse. He brushed a spray of icy ocean water from an arm clutching a wicked machete, nearly a foot and a half in length, and breathed in the salty air, permeated with the expected odor of fish and algae.

He pushed open the warehouse door and moved unobtrusively in the darkness, the moonlight filtering murkily through a grimy window, outlining a number of work tables and buckets scattered around and hooks dangling on knotted ropes hanging from the high ceiling. He ran his hand against the wall, straining his ears for any sign of movement that would be the only warning he had before he was attacked. But it didn't come. Instead, a single light bulb flicked on ahead of him. He blinked rapidly and winced as his night vision vanished. Of course; he should have foreseen that they would want to take away one of his few advantages. He clenched his weapon tighter as his eyes adjusted to the white light which, though not bright, made his eyes water.

A single figure sat in a chair in the center of the room next to a table where the offending light glowed from an electric lantern, his legs crossed primly. This new man wore a neat purple suit over a low-cut black shirt, cuffs and hems studded with green gems. A fang dangled from a cord tied close to his neck. He brushed back his shoulder-length purple hair with a hand adorned with a silver ring and stared at the newcomer, head tilted.

"I figured you'd show up eventually, Yuma."

"I figured you'd be here, Shark."

They watched one another, Yuma holding his knife a little higher. Shark frowned at the gesture.

"You're here to kill me, then?"

"There have been four deaths in this area in the past week. And don't try to deny it was you."

Shark held his hands up compromisingly. "Everyone has to eat."

Yuma took a step closer, face barely masking his disgust. "You were human, once. You don't have to kill to eat, Shark, regardless of what the name they gave you suggests."

Shark's eyes flashed dangerously. "Do you think I like it?" He climbed slowly to his feet, baring his unnaturally sharp teeth, and took a few steps toward Yuma, who took an instinctive step back. "Do you think I _like_ the pounding of blood in my ears, the insatiable thirst, the overwhelming desire to sink my fangs into soft flesh? Do you think the part of me that used to be human _likes_ killing people for their blood?" He cleared the distance between the two of them so quickly Yuma barely had time to raise his arm. Shark grabbed his wrist with one hand and shoved him roughly into the wall with the other. Yuma struggled to raise his weapon, but it was pinned with his wrist against the wall. Panic welled inside him as his violet eyes gazed back into Shark's strikingly blue eyes, his heart pounded painfully inside him. He knew Shark could hear every thud like an unceasing drumbeat but he couldn't still it.

Shark closed his eyes and pursed his lips disdainfully. "Why are you making it so difficult for me to resist, Yuma?"

"Get it over with, then," Yuma replied, voice shaking despite his efforts to control it.

Shark leaned his face close to Yuma's neck. Yuma took a sharp breath and squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the fangs to pierce his soft skin, for the warm, metallic blood to flow, for Shark's cold, bloodless lips to close on the wound as he hungrily drank the life out of him. He felt Shark's cool breath against his neck, hesitant breaths. He twisted Yuma's wrists tighter against the wall, drawing a muffled grunt. Yuma bit through his lip, tasting his own blood. Shark froze.

"What are you waiting for?" Yuma breathed. Cold sweat trickled all over his body, from his face to his back to his hands. The knife slipped from his slick fingers and clattered to the rotting wooden floor.

"We're friends, aren't we?"

Yuma's heart skipped a beat. "Not anymore. You're not Ryoga Kamishiro now. He's dead and replaced by a monster that looks like him."

Shark's body pressed closer. "I have all my memories," he whispered. "You used to like this." His mouth tugged at Yuma's bottom lip and he moaned quietly as he tasted the blood Yuma had drawn. Yuma fought the urge to throw up as he tried to pull away, but Shark's grip was too tight, his body too pressing. He managed to pull his face away, exposing the soft skin on his neck instead.

"Just kill me," Yuma whispered pleadingly. "For God's sake, don't make me endure this." It made him sick, how this monster with his best friend's face pretended nothing was wrong, that things could be the way they were. That it could toy with him this way. He was more disgusted with the tiny part of himself that wanted this, _wanted_ to pretend that things were okay.

"You had your chance to put an end to me when I was bitten, Yuma. You let me walk away, hoping I'd be different. By not killing me when you could, you made me suffer, you turned me into _this_."

Yuma whimpered as Shark kissed him. His fingernails scrabbled uselessly against the wall as Shark's lips traced his jawline. Shark's hands released Yuma's wrists and slid up his arms, over his chest, and Yuma grabbed Shark by the shoulders in a vain attempt to push him away. He had no energy left to resist, and Shark was so much stronger physically, he always had been. Yuma's last fleeting memory as his violet eyes met Shark's azure ones was of Ryoga caressing him like this on the couch as they watched a crappy movie with even worse acting, the night before he had been turned into a vampire. Before Ryoga Kamishiro was dead, and Shark was born.

Then Shark's fangs sank into his neck.

Yuma's eyes opened wide and he gazed at Shark, mouth trembling noiselessly as he felt Shark methodically drinking his warm blood, sucking at his neck. It was strange how it didn't seem to hurt. His vision swam as he slid against the wall, and the last thing he registered was Shark's hand stroking his face.

Shark finished draining Yuma and leaned the still-warm body against the wall. Yuma's eyes stared blankly at the far wall, mouth still open slightly. Shark picked up the blade on the floor and ran it lovingly across his fingers. Decapitation was the only way he could die. He couldn't think of a way to remove his own head completely on his own. It seemed a poor evolutionary design to deny a monster the right to destroy itself.

"Where does a monster go when it dies?" he asked the lifeless body of his former lover.

Yuma gave him no answer. Shark didn't expect one; Yuma had never been much for existential philosophy.


End file.
